The Rise of the Hung Temple

The Rise of the Hung Temple: Shifting Constructions of Place, Religion and Nation in Contemporary Vietnam Thi Diem Hang Ngo Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Discipline of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences University of Adelaide May 2016 i Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................ iv Thesis declaration ............................................................................................. vi Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... vii List of Illustrations .............................................................................................x Figures .........................................................................................................x Plates ............................................................................................................x Glossary ........................................................................................................... xii Ethnographic prelude ........................................................................................1 Chapter 1 The rise of the Hung Kings .........................................................4 Studying the Hung Kings: motivations and early experiences .......................4 Setting the scene: the Hung Kings and the Hung Temple ..................................6 Location of the Hung Temple .......................................................................8 History of the Temple site........................................................................... 10 Gaps in the research ....................................................................................... 13 Practice theory: a window into religious belief and place-based practices at the Hung Temple.................................................................................................. 15 Place and place-making practices................................................................ 17 Religion and religious practices .................................................................. 20 Methodology: an insider-outsider approach .................................................... 25 Chapter overview and thesis contributions ...................................................... 29 Chapter 2 Place-making at the Hung Temple and the state-led production of nationalism ................................................................................................... 31 Place, place-making and nationalism .......................................................... 33 Constructing the Hung Temple during a period of revolution (1945–1986) ..... 35 Contemporary state-led place-making practices and the production of nationalism ..................................................................................................... 41 Reconstruction and expansion of the temple complex ................................. 44 Narrative topology ...................................................................................... 47 Textual performance of nationalism in visitor books ................................... 52 Producing nationalism on official visits ...................................................... 58 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 3 Navigating the bureaucracy for personal gain: ritual, social and economic practices .................................................................................... 70 ii Temple bureaucracy and the influence of village politics ................................ 72 Understanding the institutional structure ..................................................... 73 Significance and effect of village kinship .................................................... 77 Perceptions of bureaucratic practices .......................................................... 80 Bureaucracy in practice at the Hung Temple ................................................... 82 Temple keepers: everyday roles and motivations ............................................ 87 One year up the mountain ........................................................................... 94 Producing the Kings’ gifts .......................................................................... 99 The shopkeeper: manipulating the bureaucracy to make a living ................... 103 Working outside the management system ..................................................... 108 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 111 Chapter 4 Influence of religious practices on identity and agency of devotees of the Hung Kings ............................................................................ 113 The re-emergence of religious practices .................................................... 114 Conceptualising identity and agency ......................................................... 117 Mrs. Pham: becoming a religious specialist .................................................. 120 Ideological crisis and religious healing ..................................................... 123 Developing a religious identity ................................................................. 127 Effects of ritual: story of a businessman .................................................... 130 Messages of the deities: The story of a politician ...................................... 134 A new identity .......................................................................................... 137 Ms Tri: becoming the daughter of the Hung Kings ....................................... 138 Religious engagement and transformation of identity ................................ 141 Developing religious identity: planning to build a temple ......................... 143 Undertaking a pilgrimage: religious identity in public ............................... 147 Discussion: Linking religious engagement, identity and agency .................... 151 Chapter 5 Performance, communitas and contentious practices at the festival of the Hung Temple ........................................................................... 154 Performance, communitas and contentious practice .................................. 155 The anniversary festival: agenda and participants ......................................... 160 The festival agenda ................................................................................... 161 Visitors and their motivations ................................................................... 163 The village performers: practices of inclusion and exclusion ........................ 167 Performing the national identity ................................................................ 170 The national ritual delegation and the structuring of power relations ............. 175 Summary of festival observations ................................................................. 182 Contentious practices at the anniversary festival of the Hung Kings .......... 183 iii Chapter 6 The rise of the Hung Temple: concluding observations......... 187 Beyond the temple: seeking connections with the Hung Kings...................... 193 References ....................................................................................................... 197 iv Abstract This thesis provides an ethnographic exploration of the Hung Temple in Phu Tho province, Vietnam. As a temple dedicated to the Hung Kings at a location that is promoted as a national heritage site, the Hung Temple provides the setting for different debates about ongoing cultural, political and religious transformations in contemporary Vietnam. I focus on the state-led construction of place and the associated efforts to foster nationalism, popular religiosity and a sense of shared identity amongst the Vietnamese. I especially emphasise the meanings that people produce about the Hung Temple as a historically significant location, an important work place and as a sacred site of national veneration to the ancestors that are now revered as deities. My framing of these issues is sensitive to the state’s shifting relationship to religion and to ancestor worship in a period of economic and political transition. I employ practice theory in particular to illuminate the understandings and connections that different facets of society have with the Hung Temple. The use of practice theory is important because it helps me identify how the state has constructed the Hung Temple as well as the potentially unanticipated ways that different people relate to the Hung Kings and the Temple. My approach includes attention to the ambitions of national rulers who construct an official narrative of the nation through their depiction of the Hung Temple’s significance. It also includes the relationship that temple priests, administrators, and bureaucrats have with the temple complex and its surrounding landscape. My practice theory approach additionally gives attention to the people who develop their own individual practices of worship to the Hung Kings and who come to see the Hung Kings as potent deities from whom they can receive the blessings and benefits that will help improve their lives. Finally, by focusing on moments of national celebration on the Hung Kings’ anniversary, I show how these different facets of society come together under the same purpose, but sometimes to different ends. In particular, I use

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